How do y'all cast your...

Heavier flies on lighter tackle? I had an 8'6" 4wt out today and did some nymph fishing, some with an indicator/shot/tandem rig mess which was not a problem for the most part. I approached some different water and needed to lose the indicator tandem rig but I was having some terrible casts when I took the indicator off and was trying to cast a larger BH nymph by itself. It seems like that big BH nymph had a mind of its own and didnt want to unroll with the rest of the line and leader both on back casts and forward casts. Seemed like there was alot of hinging motion in the leader. I was using a faster action rod and a 9' 4x leader. Is this a casting issue, or an equipment issue, or both? I'm thinking that a 7' leader may have changed things but I didn't try it. Good day though, 3 big holdover rainbows hitting the stonefly nymphs before the thunder-boomers ran me off.

Even the biggest nymph shouldn't give you that much trouble. Are you casting a shot as well?

I'm not really sure why it would change so much when removing the indie.

The fly cast is a funny thing. Fishing my 490 SLT yesterday with small indie and two small nymphs was giving me fits, when I moved to a small streamer (still with indie) the cast was smooth as silk. Moved back to the nymph set up and I was casting great. What changed? My stroke I suppose.

If I was to provide judgement without witnessing I would say it is possible that when you were fishing with the indie you were tossing relatively open loops. When removing the indie and still fishing the nymph you may not have tightened up the loop and kept it as open as when fishing the indie tandem rig, thus causing your problem.

As an aside, my main trout rod in the Midwest is an 8.5 Sage ZXL, I fish tandem flies, indie rigs all the time. Flies 14-20 with Dinsmore shot up to BB in some instances - small float. I open it up when throwing the rig that way... and tighten it up if I switch to single fly/dry dropper. Hence my commentary.

Cheers,
Mike.

No shot, just a tungsten BH 14. And yes my tandem cast is an overtly open looped cast so I did change up when I took that mess off. I expect the hinging with all of that paraphernalia on the leader, but with one fly at the end of a leader I just expected a nice rollover and I was not getting it. Maybe rust...

Hi Jason,

You gotta get a technique down that works for you, that is providing the rod has a forgiving action. With any kind of weight keep the false cast / back cast to a minimum! I cast a size 4 Spey style hook tied with my Nine Three variation along with a 32" lead head using an old 5 weight Far & Fine. I cast those things around 40 feet with little effort. It's a technique thing my friend. If you come up to go fishing this fall I'll show you how I do this

Ard

There's a reason they call it chuck and duck. Faster rod works for me. It's a lot of weight going in more than one direction if you think about it. Open loop and watch your timing.